A Very Fun 4th of July!

The Beautiful Bunch kids (after eating colored Popsicles...Cameron's was BLUE as you can see) at the 4th of July Parade in Kaysville...
We had a very eventful 4th of July this year and hope that you did too! First we had our 1st Annual Neighborhood Pancake Breakfast started by John...We passed out 120 flyers door to door around our neighborhood the week before and anxiously awaited to see who would actually come out. We were delighted and surprised at the amount of people who came. John made ALL the pancakes (with help from great friend Eric), rootbeer syrup (suprisingly a big hit) and Bailey's/Laurel's Vanilla syrup (always a crowd pleaser). Everyone brought some kind of side dish or beverage and then sat down to enjoy YUMMY homemade pancakes (with or without chocolate chips).

We then had a bike parade around the path in the common area which was also a great big success. Morgan was the diehard biker going about 15-20 laps (the last 10 by herself) before we told her that the parade was over and she could stop now. Funny!

After breakfast clean up we raced over to our favorite spot at the Kaysville Parade. It was very hot but oh so fun. We loved being with Maama and Bhampa, Liz, Alex & Joseph (and good friend Tomas), and Rachel, Ryan, Mia & Isabel (who all also joined us for breakfast and were great helpers...thanks). The girls also had a blast getting completely SOAKED by all the water floats that came by (A HUGE hit in the Kaysville Parade and the main reason it is so well attended and loved).
Watching the Parade with Mia.

After the parade we raced home to finish packing for our Stayner Family Reunion in Provo. We rented a big home in the River Bottoms which had plenty of space for us all to do whatever we needed to do...while at the same time be under one roof. That night, John led us in fireworks...he first made the kids line up so he could light their sparklers one by one. Then he put on the display. Luckily we were next door to same crazy illegal firework displays so we got a great show along with John's!

Here are the kids anxiously waiting for John to light their sparklers as ALL the other adults (including myself) sit 2 feet away watching! Morgan was very brave with her sparklers and Ryan did a happy gay dance to show his enthusiasm for the fireworks display...


















Overall it was a terrific day followed by a VERY FUN and SUCCESSFUL Family Reunion. The highlights were definitely game playing with the Gibbons, the girls' effort to attend the closed Provo temple, the girls' stroll down memory lane at BYU (did I really live in THAT many places?) and yelling at passerbys (really funny...you should try it), Liz's character building exercises (all that education was WELL worth it) and just watching all the kids interact and get along and have a wonderful time. In fact, we ALL got along which was a treat...the 14000 square foot home we stayed in HELPED a lot with this one...you could easily run away and hide or sleep and no one would be the wiser. Thanks wonderful family for this terrific event!

Go Uncle Ryan!